This invention relates in general to gear driven, power transfer assemblies. In particular, this invention relates to a control system for meshing gear elements that attenuates vibrational disturbances transmitted by contacting gear elements.
Gear trains are devices which transfer power from an input source to an output target by way of toothed elements. Power transfer relies on the intermeshing of a plurality of teeth disposed around the outer surface of mating gears. The intermeshing of gear teeth includes an amount of looseness to accommodate the tolerances associated with the plurality of teeth to prevent the teeth from binding or excessive wear. It is known that meshing teeth transfer vibrational disturbances generated by mating powertrain components during operation. These disturbances generally result in objectionable acoustical issues and can also generate structural excitations that cause damage by sympathetic vibration excitations.
It would be advantageous to provide a gear train that could compensate for vibrational issues that are transferred by gear mesh contact. It would further be advantageous to provide an adjustment mechanism that would be tunable to reduce or eliminate gear mesh vibrations.